Writing about disasters

L'Écriture du désastre

In his later years, Blanchot reflected on Auschwitz, but his unique approach lies in considering it as a catastrophe or catastrophic event. Catastrophe in a neutral sense is not yet a disaster; it is related to forgetting, opening up a neutral space, a "between" outside of presence and absence. Within the catastrophe, only the catastrophe, like the disintegrating stars, stands as a warning. "Catastrophe is a gift, it gives catastrophe; it does not consider existence or non-existence." It simply refuses and resists all existing order. In the Nazi concentration camps, however, every face only leads to the negation of production itself. Everyone has become a collective, anonymous face, even fearing their own face. Concentration camps have no place for faces.
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Why should all the misfortunes, finished and unfinished, personal and impersonal, present and eternal, have this suggestion, this constant reminder, of misfortunes recorded in history but without a date, of a country shrunk to the point of being almost wiped off the map, and whose history transcends world history? Why is this?

2016-09-01

南京大学出版社

Nanjing University Press·Watchman

190

9787305173356